The Imprint Theory
by kelrose
Summary: My world stopped on March 1. Everything I thought I knew no longer existed. I'd seen this all before, but the second she came laughing into the house a permanent shock ran through my veins." The love story of Seth and his imprint.
1. Psych 1A

**Disclaimer:** _For the entire story... Everything, all of the werewolf legends, characters, etc. belong to Stephenie Meyer. I am not gaining any profit of this story._

_To my (few) readers... enjoy. I only have the first chapter done currently. I might extend it if people are interested. :)_

* * *

My world stopped on March 1. Everything I thought I knew no longer existed. I'd seen this all before, but the second she came laughing into the house a permanent shock ran through my veins. I thought I knew what it felt like to find your soul mate, but it was not even close. Nothing can compare to the day I feel in love with Hayley Antoinette Strong. -Seth

* * *

I taped my pencil against the desk while nervously waiting for class to start. I knew I shouldn't be nervous, after all it was my second semester in college, but I couldn't seem to calm my nerves. Though I normally ran late, I had showed up early to class to make a good impression on the first day. Also, as I had unfortunately learned last semester, teachers don't have assigned seating and getting no desk the first day means no desk all semester. Groan. A cute guy came in and sat down next to me, carelessly pulling out his books. I started to plan my conversation with him, introducing myself while casually flirting, but quickly I stopped myself. I swallowed hard, remembering why I had given up on guys in the first place. Will. His name still affected my wellbeing after over six months. Technically, seven months and a few days, but time didn't matter anymore. I glared down in disgust; I had been doing so well at controlling my feelings about that certain subject. I was too strong to let one little name ruin my afternoon.

I felt a tap on my shoulder that pulled me out of my reverie, and I quickly looked up.

"Sorry, I was wondering if this seat was taken?" said a worried looking girl with beautiful long brown hair. I wondered if she was worried about the class, or the fact that I must have had an ugly, hurt expression on my face when I looked at her.

"Ahh, no, go right ahead!" I hoped to soothe her troubled look by replying much too eagerly. Poor girl probably received an accidental glare from me.

"Thank you so much! Ugh I got lost trying to find this class, and I was afraid I was going to be late for my first college experience! That would have been so bad! Kim, by the way," she spewed, taking a deep breath after her long thanks.

"Hayley. This is your first semester at PC?" I smiled, holding back a laugh at her mix of nerves and excitement.

"Yep! I was always planning on starting in the Fall, but, well, things happen, you know?"

"Umm, yeah. So uh, where are you from?"

"Oh, La Push, not too far from here. It's actually a beautiful place, right on the coast." Her face lit up at the mention of her hometown, she obviously loved it there. "What part of Washington are you from?"

I'd heard that question many times since I started at PCC and knew there was much confusion to come. "Actually, I'm from Northern California." I slightly smiled at her confused face before continuing. "I know, people don't normally go to a community college out of state. But my dad is the president of the community college in my hometown, so he has some connections." How thankful I was for those precious connections, the ones that let me escape and start fresh.

"Why of all places would you come to Port Angeles? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it here, but it's no LA"

"Well, my options were A. Stay home, B. Here C. Northern Wisconsin or D. Kansas. Staying home was completely out of the question, Wisconsin is far too cold, and Kansas just sounded miserable. That left me with option b, and I was happy to take it"

"You do realize it gets pretty cold here too. And on top of that, there is a constant rainfall. Seriously, it never seems to end. On the positive side, you never need to worry about droughts."

I smiled at her humor. "Oh, but I love the rain! I love the smell right after its poured and the drizzle in the morning. And the droplets that cover all the plants and flowers. It's just the cold I can't stand. I swear, no matter how many layers I put on, I still manage to be freezing! But the rain and the beauty of this place makes it almost worth it."

Kim laughed and started to respond but the Professor abruptly started writing on the board, and I scrambled to copy down the class guidelines.

After a boring first class, the professor let us out an hour early, as long as we promised to copy down a classmate's name, number, and email in case we missed a day of class. I turned to Kim, and we quickly exchanged our contact information. She gave me two numbers, her cell phone and her friend Emily's house, where she spent most of her time. She gave me both numbers, claiming she had little cell service in La Push, didn't have a house phone and rarely checked her email.

Kim definitely had friend potential. She reminded me of my best friend back on California. I missed them a lot but my decision had turned out well so far. I had made new friends at the coffee shop I worked at, gotten straight A's in my classes, and kept 'the rules' I promised I'd keep when I moved.

I came here to heal, to grow. To remember how strong I was, and realize how strong I can be. I spent too long being an victim of my pain. They tried to tell me I was running away from my hurt, stuffing it down and letting it haunt me. But they were exactly wrong. I came to Washington to separate myself from all the pain and let time heal my wounds.


	2. Head Check

_AN: First off, yes, you **ARE** reading the right story! I just changed the story name to The Imprint Theory! I hope you like it! I thought that **Collide **was far too common and did not fit the theme of the story. I'm sorry for any confusion! [And I hope I don't lose any readers!]_

_I'm so sorry for taking this long!! I've been done with this chapter for a little over a week but I was waiting for it to get beta-ed. I also was busy graduating! Unfortunately, this chapter never did looked over by someone else. I'm sorry for any grammatical mistakes! This is getting long so please read the end AN :)_

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I stared at my computer screen, not quite sure how to answer the survey question for my Psych assignment. It was a bit of a, 'get to know you' survey or the 'what did you do this summer' essay that I was forced to write at the start of every year. Only this one started off basic but continued to get deeper and deeper. I hoped my teacher wasn't planning on reading into every answer and thus using some deep psychoanalysis thing to use against us. Question 4 should have been easy enough, "What is different about this semester than the rest?" bit causes me to chew on my eraser and just sit in front of my computer.

My second semester start didn't shake up anything new or cause any major changes in my life. The days were still quite routine and a bit boring.

I couldn't decide if I truly liked it or not. In some ways I longed for change, something exciting to happen in my life that ended my monotonous days. Yet the basic was so much easier to control, with little expectations or risky problems that I accepted the slowness peacefully.

This isn't to say I had no life what so ever; it just wasn't full of drama or excitement. There were never really any extremes, though I must admit my job sometimes kept me on my toes.

My work at the campus coffee shop could be very fun on exciting shifts however slow days are unbearable. Today, we forced my co-worker Owen to wear the pirate outfit. Today was definitely more of an exciting day. Anytime anyone is forced to wear the outfit, it seems to make the shift a whole lot better. Unless you happen to be the one stuck with the outfit of course.

"Pirate Coffee" is obviously named after our mascot, but someone thought it would be funny to name everything after Pirate related stuff. Our drinks are called "Shiver Me Timbers" (Strong black coffee), and "Walk the Plank" (Hot chocolate). It just gets a bit ridiculous. Luckily, they stopped forcing employers to wear pirate outfits last year. The "costumes" are still in the back and become the object of our games. For messing up on people's drinks, missing a shift, or being late, you are forced to wear the ridiculous pirate hat, a cape, foam sword, etc. It's pretty amusing, but embarrassing if a professor or a guy you like came in. I've worn the dreaded outfit once, and while I got a lot of weird looks, it was pretty funny.

While Owen is a great guy, he really isn't very good at being organized when it comes to ingredients. We get quite a few complaints when he leaves the register, thus he is forced to wear the pirate outfit. Truthfully, he shouldn't really be working at Pirate but he is so loveable that no one can fire him. The fact that he also constantly has to wear the outfit is enough to keep him around.

I really did enjoy my job despite the occasional embarrassment and the fact that it was work. I mostly saved my paycheck every month because I rarely bought anything outside of food and music. I occasionally went out with my friends from work, but I spent quite a bit of time just trying to balance out 20 units, a part time job, and keeping straight A's.

One of my father's many rules of me being here and not at his college was maintaining above a 3.5 GPA, which isn't the easiest task while in college. To be sure I safely passed above the rules, I let my sporadic Type A personality out to keep my 4.0.

Sometimes I regret not allowing myself to have the 'full college experience.' I'm no party girl, nor ever will ever be, but I live off relationships and closeness with other people. Making friends has always been easy for me and my friends mean the world to me. Especially my best friends back home. Even though they feel a bit like I've abandoned them.

I sometimes feel like a tiny version of those men who go off into the woods by themselves for a year, to find who they are and see if they can handle the cold. Like Thoreau, the famous author/philosopher, or the soul searching Spirit Walks of the Native Americans. I'm not in the wilderness, but I am way out of my element. Coming here has extremely pushed me out of my comfort zone, but on most days I really like it. Especially compared to how I felt during the summer.

Unfortunately, this all does not fit into a few sentences that could answer my professors simply question. I'm slightly afraid to even skip this question, knowing the other are supposed to be deeper. I spent a whole 5 minutes on this question so far, and have three words that I plan to erase to show for it.

Maybe I _do_ need my head checked after all.

* * *

After taking almost two hours on an assignment that should have taken twenty minutes, I showed up to class with a paper looking at least a page or two thicker than everyone else's. The only mound of paper that came close to rival mine was Kim's paper, which made me less self-conscious. Mostly just because it was similar to mine but also because we're showing more and more similarities.

Kim and I have talked a lot in the past week because our Professor loves 'partner sharing time.' Slightly ridiculous, slightly fun.

Hearing about Kim's life never failed to interest me. Because she grew up on a reservation she had many different cultural differences that bled into her view of society and the world. She told stories on how the people beloved they came from wolves, how they still had tribal gatherings, yet they had less spirit connecting and more food. Our Professor was equally interested in her views, so I wasn't the only one caught up in all her tales. I have a feeling he was only interested in how it involved psychology, while I found it plain fascinating.

I'm not sure if she was always able to follow my long-winded, confusing, complicated stories but she tried her best. My hometown was a midsized city yet Kim found it quite exciting because she had never stepped foot outside of Washington. I constantly tried to explain that our beaches weren't the warm water, bikini-wearing beaches you see on TV, and much more similar to Washington's, but she didn't care. My city was a bit of a tourist town because of the many winery and vineyards. She also found my home life very interesting, even though I kept a lot of details to myself. I still wasn't comfortable sharing about why I left. She often shook her head and rolled her eyes at the mention that living in Port Angles was better than California. I carefully danced around the topic of the main reason I was here though I'm sure she knew I was hiding some things. It was too hard not to, out 'partner sharing time' really did bring out a lot of personal issues.

For one, she had lost her father at a young age. I can't remember if it was two or three, but something around toddler age. It seemed unfathomable to me, to live my life without my father. My father was definitely a weird one, but he had greatly influences me growing up. He still does. We've talked into great detail on how the loss of her father has affected her life. While her loss was definitely tragic, the fact that her father was full Quileutecreated a big blessing for her. While her mother was only half Native American and I think even from another tribe, the Quileute tribe took their family in as their own. Kim and her mom never had to worry about making ends meet because the tribe provided her a job on the reservation and even then made sure they were always had enough to go around. There was always someone watched Kim while her mother worked so she has many people she refers to a 'cousin' or even calls them siblings. Just another reason why I wish I were part of such a great culture. They truly were a loving family.

I do love my family too. My dad is basically the definition of nerd. He is the president of our cities community college, has a PhD in education and a masters in History. Can you get any nerdier? That doesn't include his love for sci-fi, obscure music, and random video games. Maybe if I were a boy this would be cooler, but my sister and I usually just laugh and roll our eyes.

Oh, Abby. I think I miss her the most of everyone. I've also been missing her the longest, so I guess that makes sense. She moved to New York five years ago, straight out of high school. She has made some of a name for herself as a designer, yet there are so many aspiring people that she has to put in lots of work. She visits home maybe once a year because her job takes up so much time and she spends most holidays with her fiancé's family in Long Island.

My mom complains to her often about her absence but still is very supportive of her. Not to say my Dad isn't, he just, well, wishes she had gone to college. She did go to a school of design yet it wasn't academic enough for my father's taste. Abby is my mother's favorite, while I'm my clearly my Dad's. Of course, they'd never claim favoritism but everyone knows its true. I think I hurt my Dad when I refused to go to his college, but he graciously contacted some of his friends working at other community colleges to see where I could get in.

I've very happy living here in Port Angles. Well, not very, but I'm good. Not to hate on Peninsula College but the SRJC where my father works has so many class options and extracurricular. I don't really mind the small town feel though and my job is pretty good. I do have some friends and hang out everyone and a while but it does get a bit lonely. I fully accept the price of loneliness though for the trade of for coming here.

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_Second A/N: Please** review** with questions, critiques, advice and anything else!! I'd really love the help!_

_ I'm also looking for a beta that can edit and return a chapter (about 2,000 words) within a few days. Let me know if you are interested :)._

_I know I'm being vague about Hayley's past.. believe me, you will hear about it! This chapter had no dialogue purposely, what did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know. I created a time line for the story, I believe about 12 chapters unless I get too into it and extend the chapters. _

_Questions to discuss in reviews: Do you find Kim's story interesting? Do you find Hayley to be an interesting character? When do you think Hayley will go to LaPush? [Those who answer any of these get a sneak peak/outtakes for the next chapter]_

_And most of all... Thank you for reading! You're awesome!_


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